Juniority

When I was playing with the City of Toronto's sick leave buyout calculator to try to assess what kind of offer City employees were getting by plugging in my own real-life data, it gave me an insultingly low number. That offer didn't even come close to making up for the number in days of my career so far (like today, for example) when I've woken up in the morning, yearned to call in and take a mental health day, had the days available and could totally have gotten away with it no questions asked, but instead dragged myself out of bed and went to work because my team needed me that day.

But when I increased the number of years of service on the calculator from my real-life 6 years to a more approaching-retirement 30 years, the result was either 10 times or 20 times as much (depending on whether I said yes to the 1998 grandfathering clause.) Turns out the buyout isn't proportionate to the number of years of service - the workers get less per-year credit if they have fewer years of service.

I've heard about this sort of thing happening before when the employer wants to buy out some previously collectively bargained benefit, and I always have a massive, visceral negative reaction. Like beyond the "No fair!" factor of a year not being equal to a year. It really is a disproportionate reaction for something that doesn't affect me personally.

I think I've figured out why I'm reacting this way: they're treating the workers with fewer years of service as though they're less loyal.

Now, at first glance, you might be thinking "Well, of course! Someone with 30 years is a lifer!" But it cuts close to home for me because I'm a lifer too with my six years of service. How can I claim to be a lifer with only six years of service? Because I'm 28 years old, my job requires university-level training, and time proceeds linearly and at a fixed rate.

When I was growing up, all the grownups around me were lifers. Some people left the workforce to raise children, but other than that the reality as I knew it was you get a job, you work hard for decades, you retire. Then, just as I was starting to become economically aware, the 90s recession came along and the conventional wisdom was that no one will ever have a job for life at all ever again, you're always going to be constantly getting downsized and having to scramble for a new job. But (like many people, I'd imagine) I don't want to keep scrambling for a new job. I'd love to keep the same job all my life, work hard, and have that be enough to one day retire. If (when) that becomes impossible, it's going to be because of a decision by the employer, not because of how I want to live my life.

As a junior worker, I'm no less loyal than my senior colleagues. I just have fewer years of service because of the limitations of the space-time continuum. If my employer were taking away my benefits (when my employer does take away my benefits) it would be a second slap in the face to be treated like I'm less loyal just because I am, for reasons completely beyond my control, younger and newer.